But for some people, any sort of run-in with drugs or alcohol — in some cases, extended to smoking and even prescription drugs as well — makes you instantly less of a human being.

These people feel not only that drugs and alcohol should be avoided, but that those who don't accept this philosophy are weak, brainwashed, generally inferior. In especially extreme cases, this attitude even applies toward people who have recovered from past problems with drugs, or have only done them once.

Direct descendant of the Dry Crusader and often shares the Dry Crusader's self-righteousness.

Dave Barry mentions a commercial with two little girls so smug it makes you want to inhale a pack of Camels out of spite.

Comic Books

Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow, had a very negative view of drug dealers and users, and like many other Badass Normal, thought himself better than they were for staying straight. Then his sidekick Speedy started doing Heroin. The ensuing confrontation went...badly.

Later a Retcon in the Green Arrow: Year One mini-series gave Oliver some motivation for this attitude, other than misdirected anger at himself for neglecting his sidekick - he had been injured while defending the enslaved population of a tropical island turned drug-farm and the only painkiller available to the woman who treated his wounds was heroin. Ollie just barely survived the withdrawal, which left him wondering how anyone could willingly subject themselves to such an experience.

Todd Ingram from Scott Pilgrim, who says a big part of committing to veganism is knowing that you're better than most other people. Granted, this is a world where going vegan gives you powerful psychic abilities. He also isn't even a real vegan. Subverted with the other vegans seen though.

Film

One of Bob Roberts' songs is titled "Drugs Stink", and contains the lyrics "Drugs stink/They make me sick/Those that sell 'em/And those that do 'em/String 'em up/From the highest tree/Without a trace of sympathy."

In Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October, the Navy doctor is smug about the fact that he doesn't drink, smoke or use caffeine. It turns out that while he is indeed arrogant about this and is willing to acknowledge that fact, he does make a more nuanced argument against doing so in a hospital when a dumbass KGB agent nearly kills his patient by trying to light a cigarette in a room full of oxygen.

There's a smug Straight Edge guy at the quiet mining town in Skins, who tries to woo Effy. When the crew escape the town, they mock his crossed arms salute.

The mindset (although not necessarily the movement itself) is parodied in Black Books; at one point, a rather uptight looking customer approaches the shabby, chain-smoking alcoholic Bernard in the shop while he's smoking a cigarette and rather pompously says "You know, I'm inhaling a lot of second hand smoke from you." Bernard nonchalantly responds with: "Don't worry about it, buy me a drink sometime."

In one episode, Fran takes up yoga with a friend who turns out to be the New-Agey version of this, berating Fran for drinking, smoking, eating wheat or meat or chocolate, and hanging out with people who do all of the above. Fran tries to emulate her, briefly turning into a smug straight edge herself, but cracks by the end of the episode and returns to being the dissolute chain-smoker Bernard knows and tolerates.

The Good Place: Every action someone performs in life gives them either a positive or a negative effect to their total score, which ultimately determines which afterlife they end up in. Eating vegan gives a reasonable bonus... but not bragging about it gives over twenty times as much.

Professional Wrestling

Cactus Jack did a few promos in ECW bragging about how hardcore he is, and did brag about never using drugs in high school or during his at the time 10-year career.note Foley admits to pain pills, though he's not exactly abusing them.

CM Punk has this as a catch phrase- "straight edge means I'm better than you" or "drug-free, alcohol-free, and better than you". The opening of his ROH\FIP theme, Miseria Cantare - AFI, even had him boasting about his straight edginess. When Punk works heel, he is of this sort and takes every opportunity to gloat about his straight-edge lifestyle.

Daniel Bryan in 2012 while not straight edge per se, repeatedly bragged that being a vegan makes him better than everyone, and even mocking people and saying they're eating garbage when they try to eat meat. CM Punk threatened to sue him for gimmick infringement.

Stand Up Comedy

Bill Hicks did a bit about the smugness of non-smokers, saying "I'd quit if it wasn't for the fact that I'd become one of you."

Grrl Power: Peggy (the Team Normal) describes superpowers as like vegans. "They can't wait to tell you about it."

Peggy: I generally don't have to ask why someone can't eat out at my favorite tex-mex place with me, or if they just installed solar panels on their house, or that they can shoot laser beams out of their nipples. They will volunteer that information.

Western Animation

On A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, often the villains got involved with drugs (Yuck! Patooie!) and that's why they are messed up. A good example is a former skateboarding champion who's "no good at all" after he tried steroids.

Metalocalypse featured one Rikki Kixx, who runs a rehab movement and fronts a newly clean-and-sober band - it turns out sobriety has been legally and medically forced on him (and the potential loss of PR he'd get if he was caught imbibing doesn't help) and he's determined that everyone else should be as miserable as he is. The concert he headlined to promote his movement ends horribly, as a little known side effect of a drug his bandmates took in the past kicked in, causing hallucinations in the audience, leading everyone to turn to drugs to cope with them. It doesn't help that his other big name sobriety partner, Dr. Rockso, failed the Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere trope and fell off the wagon. And Pickles beats the shit out of him.

South Park portrays Rob Reiner this way in his crusade against smoking. It also portrays him as a hypocrite, indulging in unhealthy eating habits while lecturing people about how unhealthy smoking is.

Real Life

As noted in the trope description for Straight Edge, Straight Edgers can be like this sometimes. In an extreme example, two Straight Edgers actually assaulted another man.

Mr. T is a teetotaler, and prides himself on drinking only kid-friendly milk rather than alcohol.

Winners Don't Use Drugs is the name of an anti-drug slogan that was included on all arcade games imported into to North America from 1989 through to the year of 2000. The message appeared during the attract modes of both video games and on some pinball machines. It was established by FBI Director William S. Sessions with an agreement with the American Amusement Machine Association. By law it had to be included on all imported arcade games and continued to appear long after Sessions left office. The quote normally appeared in gold against a blue or black background between the FBI seal and Sessions' name.

Penn Jillette doesn't object to alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs, in fact, he advocates legalizing them. He also never misses an opportunity to remind people he's never used them. This either comes off as some grand proclamation of philosophical fortitude or just a disclaimer from an opinionated person who's never experienced drugs first hand and does not want to be judged to be someone merely endorsing the legalization of drugs because he himself likes drugs.

Real-world reversal: Crucial Youth were a straight-edge send-up that parodied the movement and regularly gave the audience a good clean with the Youthbrush.

Inversion: Quite a few of the pro drug group can be equally as smug for 'having seen and experienced things you can never even dream of, being more creative, being more philosophical and generally just being more worldly than you' 'cause they smoked/shot/ate something.

Major Dick Winters (subject of Band of Brothers) admits in the book that he thought like this - he didn't drink until the evening of D-Day, and thought that taking a single swallow of liquor would have a noticeable deadening effect on his reflexes and thinking.

People in Alcoholics Anonymous and similar programs can veer into this.

The metalcore act Earth Crisis has been banned from many, many, MANY venues over the years for doing things like yanking beer glasses and cigarettes away from people and frequently threatening violence upon anyone who resists, which in turn has resulted in multiple fights and straight-up brawls at their shows thanks to both the band and the more overtly militant members of their fanbase.

While not exclusively straight-edge, FSU ("Friends Stand United", originally "Fuck Shit Up") does have a large amount of straight-edge members, and over the years, they have gone from being a legitimate (if not extremely violent) anti-racist group to one of the most glaring real-life examples of The Quincy Punk. Harassment and threatening behavior towards people who are drinking, smoking, or engaging in drug usage is commonplace, as are multi-man ambushes and beatdowns on targets who have earned their ire.

P. J. O'Rourke once quoted an anonymous policeman as saying of drug addicts, "Air should be illegal if they breathe it."

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